Grouchy day…and a call to up the grump quotient

Well, it’s the time of the month again. No…not the way you must be thinking of right now.
It’s the day for my monthly dental appointment, for braces tightening. ARGH! That equates to at least 1 day of being a dog whose bark is worse than its bite. Literally. Followed by another 2 days of sore and mildly painful teeth. That’s considered a good deal, especially when my teeth have already grown accustomed to the pain. During the first 3 months, each time of re-adjustment was bloody murder.
So there, a-not-so-good day. I didn’t eat breakfast (cos I was too lazy to brush my teeth another time within a space of thirty minutes after waking up). And didn’t have lunch too, since the pain settled in ‘comfortably’ and left me without courage to inflict pressure on my pearlies. All I had was a cup of Jollibean soya milk.
I was making my way home via the MRT when I received this call from a guy called Chris Wan from Club Rainbow. I hate to answer his calls! Why? Because, every time he talks to me, it seems like I have decapitated his whole family, burnt his house and bankrupted his bank account. This time, it’s about this donation card that conveniently slipped my mind. “Need to submit it”, he reminded me in his curt voice, and I can literally hear the pissed-off undercurrent in his tone.
The thing is that, I don’t really think he meant to sound rude. Maybe it’s a bad day at work; maybe he dreamt of God telling him that he is doomed to handle the “siá gãng” [shitty work] of Programme Committee Manager in Club Rainbow all his life. But what I suspect is that he simply lacks communication skills.
And therefore, is a misunderstood soul.
Cos, we are all volunteers for this charitable organization, and all volunteers [read: no pay personnel] are all kind people at heart.

I also feel that most guys fall into this trap of being too curt and even, a tad rude on the phone. Not that we need you to ooze saccharine sweetness over the line, but being ‘matter-of-fact’ and to the point, using a gruff voice can ruin your chances of making a favourable impression on the receiver.
If you guys cannot help it [because you are genetically born with sandpaper voice and have zero communication skills sense], the simplest way to remedy this is to end the call pleasantly, with a proper goodbye. Brownie points for saying this whole sentence “Ok, have a good day then, bye”.

Some idiots actually hang up on you, without warning after saying their piece. Leaves one clueless, like “Har? Anything else? Oh, nothing more….”—Sound of Dial Tone….

That’s how bad their phone etiquette is.
Anyhow, I felt disturbed and mulled over this for 2 stations, before returning to my book. This entry is just a piece of information for guys to sound ‘nicer’ and more ‘gentlemanly’ to others (to man, woman, elderly and children alike) over the phone. Remember, not everyone you talk to is your macho soccer buddy. Be consistently nice so that next time you need to ask for a favour, we wouldn’t die of fits from your ‘newly acquired’ sugary voice.